"Belittling" or "Undervaluing" in 2 Clem. 1:1-2?

Second Clement suffers from a lack of clarity about its historical and literary contexts. The anonymous text's date and provenance have defied precise determination and, although it is referred to a few times in the history of tradition, it seems not to be cited at all. Moreover, its first two verses maintain a history of translation into modern languages employing expressions long out of date. The word, ... occurs four times in the first two verses, twice as part of the expression, .... This article identifies the outmoded nature of current translations of these words and proposes an updated translation that better reflects important new interpretations of the text's purpose, values, and assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]